To make the cake, preheat the oven to 180°C. Butter the base and sides of a 20cm round cake tin and line the base with baking paper.
Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a bowl and mix to combine.
In a large bowl beat the eggs, caster sugar and orange zest with an electric mixer for 5 minutes on high, until thick and pale. Turn the speed to low and add the oil and all dry ingredients. Mix until incorporated. Fold in the sour cream and poppy seeds.
Pour batter into cake tin. Bake for 45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

To make the icing, beat the cream cheese with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the icing sugar a little at a time. Add enough orange juice to give you a spreadable consistency. I added 1/4 tsp of orange essence for more orange flavour.
Spread the icing over the cooled cake and you’re done!

Method
Mix the butter, caster sugar and vanilla extract until just evenly mixed. Stir in the flour and cornflour. Wrap in clingfilm and chill for about 30 minutes.
Roll out to the thickness of a $1 coin and cut out different sized heart shapes. Bake at 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4 for 10 minutes. Leave to cool on a wire rack.
Make the icing sugar and divide into small bowls to add pink and red food colouring to the mixture. Now it’s time to decorate your heart biscuits!

To give biscuits as a gift, pack in a DIY box, which you can print here. To make the box more interesting you could decorate it or print it out on some pretty card.

Makes four Icy Poles
Ingredients1 cup of Lychee Juice (this will depend on the size of your icy pole moulds and how much fruit and petals you put in) 1/2 teaspoon of rosewater
Handful of red rose petals
Halved strawberries

– Icy poles moulds

MethodIn a jug mix the rosewater and lychee juice together. Place the rose petals and strawberries in your empty icy pole moulds, don’t be too fussy about this because they will change when you add the juice mix. Pour in the lychee and rosewater mix, the rose petals and strawberries will float to the top. To stop this happening add more fruit.
Put in icy pole sticks and place in the freezer until frozen.

MethodPreheat oven 180°C. Grease muffin pan with butter. Thaw puff pastry. You will need something to make a round shape, a cookie cutter or a glass. Cut out six circles of pastry and push them into your muffin pan. Place in the oven for 15 mins or until the pastry is puffed. Take out of the oven and let settle.
To make pie filling, put water, diced pear, brown sugar and rosemary into a small saucepan on a low – medium heat. Stir regularly. Cook until the pear is soft and sugar syrupy.
Spoon pie filling into the base of your pies. Create a lid for the pies with the left over puff pastry. I made a criss cross pattern. Glaze pastry with milk.
Put pies into the oven for 15 – 20 minutes or until pastry has puffed and golden brown.
Serve with extra rosemary and honey-sweetened Greek yogurt.

MethodTo make cake, preheat oven to 200°C. Line a muffin pan with patty pans.
Combine flour and caster sugar in a bowl. Make a well in the center.
Add milk, butter, eggs and vanilla to flour mixture. Using a wooden spoon, stir gently to combine.
Spoon mixture into patty pans. Bake for 12 – 15 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into center comes out clean. Stand in pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

To make icing, sift icing sugar into a bowl. Mix food colouring together and add water. Stir until smooth. Spoon icing over cupcakes. Decorate with fresh lavender.

Now that it’s autumn and the weather’s getting cooler, I’ve been feeling run down. So I decided to make homemade herbal tea. Instead of putting the herbs into a tea pot, I thought it would be a nice idea to make herbal tea bags.

It’s weather for smoothies!! This Summer Smoothie Challenge was a lot of fun, (drinking and photographing.) You might be thinking, spinach! Yuck! I had no idea what spinach smoothies would be like, but surprisingly I didn’t taste the spinach. It’s really worth trying. Spinach is high in Vitamin A, calcium, potassium and magnesium. Half a cup of spinach will give you the same amount of iron as three ounces of beef. Au revoir meat!

Day One – This was amazing! My favourite smoothie.

Two cups of blackberries
One small banana
Two big handfuls of spinach
One cup of water.
Two tablespoons of natural plain yoghurt

Blend in a blender! Top with mint leaves.

Day Two – Tasted like really sour apple juice. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Two granny smith apples
Two big handfuls of spinach
One cup of water
Half a cup of ice

Blend it!

Day Three – Intensely tangy and delicious.

One cup of raspberries
1/3 cup of coconut flakes
Two big handfuls of spinach
One cup of water

Blend! Top with shaved coconut. Day Four – This was rather strange. It was like drinking muesli; a bit sweet for me – my least favourite smoothie.

One and a half cups of sliced peach
Two big handfuls of spinach
One tablespoon of honey
1/4 cup of raw oats
One cup of water

Blend that smoothie!! Top with ice blocks.

I decided to do something completely different for the last smoothie. I used blackberries I picked from near the beach which made it extra special!

Day Five – In love with the combination of ginger and berries.

Half a cup of blackberries
Half a cup of raspberries
Chunk of ginger to taste
Three tablespoons of natural plain yoghurt
Half a cup of ice blocks
Half a cup of milk or water